Eisai and Wren Therapeutics join forces to tackle neurodegenerative synucleinopathies
pharmafile | December 1, 2020 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Eisai, Wren Therapeutics
Eisai has forged an exclusive research partnership with Wren Therapeutics to develop new approaches in tackling neurodegenerative diseases known as synucleinopathies.
The partnership aims to leverage Wren’s network kinetics drug discovery platform, specially designed for misfolding diseases, to develop novel small molecule therapies to target α-synuclein. By doing this, it is hoped that the pair will be able to generate potential new treatments for conditions including Parkinson’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies, the aggregation of protein found in the nerve cells of patients with these conditions. .
“Synucleinopathies such as dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson’s disease represent a significant unmet medical need due to the lack of any effective disease-modifying treatments. The accumulation of α-synuclein oligomers with protein misfolding is an important hallmark of these diseases,” explained Dr Teiji Kimura, Vice President, Chief Discovery Officer of the Eisai Neurology Business Group.
“The Wren team, with its world-renowned founding scientists, is pioneering a new and fundamentally different approach to addressing protein misfolding diseases,” he added. “By integrating capabilities across both companies we expect this exciting collaboration to be uniquely successful in identifying novel disease-modifying therapeutics for patients suffering from dementia with Lewy bodies, Parkinson’s disease and related disorders.”
Wren Chief Executive Officer Dr Samuel Cohen also said of the new collaboration: “We are delighted to have formed this collaboration with Eisai, a company with a distinguished track record and company-wide commitment to providing innovative treatments for patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases. We believe that by combining our unique, predictive and quantitatively driven platform with Eisai’s deep expertise in neurology, we can together advance highly differentiated small molecules targeting α-synuclein for the treatment of debilitating protein misfolding disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.”
Matt Fellows
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